Retail technology innovation of the week: Disrupt Retail connects forward thinking retailers and startups
Retail Technology Innovation of the Week is a new series brought to you by RTIH and sponsored by 3D Cloud by Marxent, highlighting stand out deployments, launches, and initiatives by retailers and tech suppliers.
Every week, we will showcase forward thinking tech plays that have impressed our Editor and the Retail Technology Innovations Report judging panel, in the run up to the publication of the 2024 report in March.
So far, we’ve showcased work being done by the likes of Ocado Retail, Decathlon, Lacoste, Downtown Spirits, TalkShopLive, Huck’s, Rovertown, Wing, McDonald’s, Google Cloud. Nobody’s Child, IKI, Pixevia, Walmart, A.L.C., Archive, Therabody, Outform, Kingfisher, PMC, Żabka Polska, Boots UK, Ocula Technologies, Grace O'Malley Irish Whiskey, Metacask, Carrefour Belgium, HMV, Worldpay from FIS, and FreedomPay.
And this week we’re focusing on the Disrupt Retail Innovation Lab, which is inviting startups to enter their ideas to get support from four retailers for pilots and proofs of concepts (PoCs) in the areas of data and customer insights, in-store operations, and retail media.
Applications open on 8th January and close on 4th February.
The four retailers from Germany, Portugal, Poland and Israel collectively represent an ecosystem of around 22,000 stores, 500,000 associates, and €80 billion in revenue,
Edeka, MC, Żabka Polska, and Shufersal are ooking to support retail innovation projects via the Disrupt Retail lab, which takes no equity and charges nothing for entries in its search for innovative ideas.
There are no prizes, formal competition or startup of the year accolades – just a search for the best technologies that can help the retailers advance their business and the industry.
Collaborations with the selected startups will begin in March 2024, with the completed projects only fully announced and detailed at the end of the year.
Companies can benefit from exclusive mentoring from key sector experts at the most relevant firm from the four supporting retail companies. Ultimately, they will see their proposals implemented in an ecosystem that encompasses millions of families across thousands of international shops and online operations.
The fourth edition of Disrupt Retail has a special focus on three main areas, covering:
Data and customer insights: projects are sought that can harness, analyse and convert data into actionable insights.
In-store operations: targeting shop processes, elevating employee productivity, and enhancing overall shopping experiences.
Retail media: ideas exploring the up and cross-sell opportunities in this new revenue stream and how it can be rolled out, monetised and so on are invited.
All four retailers are experienced in working with startups and looking to establish valuable relationships to explore new technologies.
Past examples of successful collaborations include Edeka and Captana (SES-Imagotag); MC and Automaise; Żabka and AiFi; plus Shufersal and Shopic.
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